We learned something about Lewis through the birth process…he doesn’t like change and was trying to prologue it as much as possible (I’m projecting my own emotions on him!) His birth on Sunday actually started on Friday night.

Friday night- I was at 41 weeks and had done everything that was suggested to get the birth process to start: yoga, pineapple, walking, etc. We went to the doctor that night and because I hadn’t eaten anything in a while the stress tests showed his heart rate was higher. The doctor proceeded to tell us that she wanted to do a C-section right then, but I didn’t really want to do that. She gave me some oxygen and an IV, ate something, and we had another stress test. The heart rate was better, but the doctor still wanted to get the show on the road, so she set up my induction for 10:00 the next day.

Saturday- We got everything, cleaned the house, and had a restful morning in preparation for the day. We got to the hospital and waited, story of this baby . After waiting, I got the first IV bag of picotin at 12:00, and the process started, but not really. After the second bag of picotin, still nothing. No pain, no contractions, no nothing. 18 hours later…The nurse told me that she wanted me to fast (the warning bells of a C-section went off in my head). This set me off on an emotional roller coaster ride of how the way I wanted it to go was not happening. I called my mom multiple times as I was trying to get my head wrapped around what was happening. Eventually, we decided to ask the doctor for one more bag, but we had to wait until Sunday morning for a reply.

Sunday- The doctor came and said she wanted to do a C-section. I asked her if she would let me do another bag of picotin, just to see if we could still do it naturally. She gave me a worse case scenario just to tell me about some of the risks. After talking to a doctor friend in the States, we decided to try one more bag. I would come to regret this later (not really, but yes!) We had about 6 t0 8 hours to have the baby. Travis and I walked around a courtyard and nothing was really happening for the first 4 hours and then bam! The contractions hit, and I wanted to die. I have never felt that much pain, and it didn’t stop. I was dilated at 4 cm at 1:47 pm, and at 3:35 pm I held our sweet boy in my arms. In that short amount of time, I was not dignified and did not manage the pain well. I screamed and yelled and wished I had just gone with the C-section. Travis on the other hand is my hero. He was calm, and he helped me all the way through it.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday- We recovered in the hospital and enjoyed getting to know our baby boy. The school community was awesome and brought us food. We finally got home at 4:00 pm on Wednesday after being in the hospital for 100+ hours.

Throughout the whole process, Hani (our IT guys wife and awesome person) was helping us with Indonesian and the hospital. She was so great. We are indebted to her. Also the people that were praying for us all over the world. We had people on almost every continent praying for us, and we felt it. God gave me a peace that I did know I would have (not during the contractions) during every twist and turn this delivery took. We are so happy to be home and have this little man in our lives.